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Regarding Marriage

Being newly married myself and still a novice at attempting to live with this stranger I call my husband, I find myself pondering this strange and endlessly funny state of being. Over the last year I have collected a few quotes on the subject in my struggle to learn how to “do marriage correctly”… I’m a great believer in research. I learned much and nothing at all from all this study. Marriage seems to be a “hands on” project.

Here is a sampling of the quotes I enjoyed most in my hunt for truth, justice and the American way of marriage.

If variety is the spice of life, marriage is the big can of leftover Spam.

Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.

Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up.

I know that you are not perfect and nor can I claim to be either, but please believe me, when I say that I want to be by your side, to hold your hand, to treasure you in the morning and in the noon-tide, to be next to you, to be held close to your heart now and for the rest of my living years, to comfort you, dry your tears and calm your most frightening fears, to fight your battles and show no shame to scream my love for you out loud all over the land.

Behind every good man stands a suprised mother-in-law

Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier of all laws, of all conventions; love, the freest, the most powerful molder of human destiny; how can such an all-compelling force be synonymous with that poor little State and Church-begotten weed, marriage?

In marriage we marry a mystery, an other, a counterpart. In a sense the person we marry is a stranger about whom we have a magnificent hunch. The person we choose to marry is someone we love, but his depths, her intimate intricacies – we will come to know only in the long unraveling of time. We know enough about our beloved to know that we love him, to imagine that, as time goes on, we will come to enjoy her even more, become even more of ourselves in her presence. To our knowledge we add our willingness to embark on the journey of getting to know him, of coming to see her, even so wonderfully more.

Swept up by attraction, attention, fantasy, hope, and a certain happy measure of recognition, we agree to come together for the mysterious future, to see where the journey will take us. This companionship on life’s journey is the hallmark of marriage, its natural province, its sweetest and most primal gift.

In promising always, we promise each other time. We promise to exercise our love, to stretch it large enough to embrace the unforeseen realities of the future. We promise to learn to love beyond the level of our instincts and inclinations, to love in foul weather as well as good, In hard times as well as when we are exhilarated by the pleasures of romance.

We change because of these promises. We shape ourselves according to them; we live in their midst and live differently because of them. We feel protected because of them. We try some things and resist trying others because, having promised, we feel secure. Marriage, the bond, makes us free to see, to be, to love. Our souls are protected; our hearts have come home.

If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married.

Where’s home for you?’ a stranger asked a fellow traveler. ‘Wherever she is,’ came the reply, as the man pointed at his wife.

We need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet … I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything; the good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things … all of it, all of the time, every day. You’re saying, ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness.

When a woman steals your husband, there is no better revenge than to let her keep him

All married couples should learn the art of battle as they should learn the art of making love. Good battle is objective and honest –never vicious or cruel. Good battle is healthy and constructive, and brings to a marriage the principle of equal partnership.

The most difficult year of marriage is the one you’re in.

It’s a wonderful thing, as time goes by, to be with someone who looks into your face, when you’ve gotten old, and still sees what you think you look like.

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.